Saga Travel GeoIceland

[Jangerie]

Has anyone been able to contact Saga Travel GeoIceland? When our cruise was cancelled I contacted all of our private excursion providers. Those in Norway were fantastic and provided refunds in a timely manner. Saga replied that it would take 3-4 weeks, but never arrived. Now e-mails to them bounce back. The amount involved is significant. Will now try to take the credit card path. This is the first time in 15 years that private suppliers have let us down, but there again these are strange and difficult times.

[KirkNC]

Doesn’t sound good.  I would definitely do a credit card dispute.

[pschweig]

I apologize for what is going to be a long response about our experience with Saga Travel. There never was a toll call for this cruise to which to respond.  

 

I contacted Saga Travel in April after HAL cancelled our June 27 cruise in order to cancel our two fully-paid tours for six. I made the comment that I would reschedule the same tours in 2021. 
 

Anna Margret of Saga Travel immediately contacted me and offered to reschedule the same tours for the same amount of money for July 2021. I even received new tour tickets indicating the amount paid for the now July 2021 tours. 
 

I received an email from the Icelandic Tourist Board on May 11 stating that due to bankruptcy, the tourist license for Saga Travel was suspended April 28 (less than one week after my 2021 tour tickets were issued). 

 

I filed a dispute with my credit card company for the original Dec 2019 charge. I included a copy of all email correspondence and tour tickets, as well as a copy of their cancellation policy. My argument - Saga Travel could not provide the scheduled 2021 tours because of the loss of their tour provider license. My credit card company temporarily credited the money I spent for the  tours to my card. I have not received any other information about the dispute which I filed. 
 

I hope this is helpful. 

[KirkNC]

Yikes, that’s what I was afraid of with the returned emails.

[baggal]

You can check the thread for the Zuiderdam Northern Isles cruise July 2, 2020 to read the same responses about Saga.  I was also booked on that cruise but after doing some research I chose not to book private excursions in Iceland and instead booked our Iceland excursions through HAL.  On March 10, a few weeks before final payment was due we canceled our reservation.  This was about a week before everything really "hit the fan."   Fortunately, our credit card was refunded by HAL for both the cruise and the excursions within a week.  

 

We've had luck disputing other charges with our credit card company.  Good luck!

[Turtles06]

I am so sorry to read this information.  We had one of our best tours ever with GeoIceland in the summer of 2018 (the South Coast Tour out of Reykjavik), when we were on HAL's Viking Passage.   We'd arranged it all via email with Saga/GeoIceland; many mini-bus loads of us from the ship were going.  They were excellent to deal with, and really came through quickly when the ship's arrival to Reykjavik was delayed a day because of a storm.   GeoIceland jumped on this, and with almost no notice, re-arranged the date and buses, got emails out to us on the ship, etc.  

 

They are a reputable company, and it's very sad if they are in bankruptcy; I hope they can come back.

 

For those trying to contact them, have you tried sending them a message on their Facebook page?    

 

Good luck to all, and stay safe.

[GeorgeCharlie]

3 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

I am so sorry to read this information.  We had one of our best tours ever with GeoIceland in the summer of 2018 (the South Coast Tour out of Reykjavik), when we were on HAL's Viking Passage.   We'd arranged it all via email with Saga/GeoIceland; many mini-bus loads of us from the ship were going.  They were excellent to deal with, and really came through quickly when the ship's arrival to Reykjavik was delayed a day because of a storm.   GeoIceland jumped on this, and with almost no notice, re-arranged the date and buses, got emails out to us on the ship, etc.  

 

They are a reputable company, and it's very sad if they are in bankruptcy; I hope they can come back.

 

For those trying to contact them, have you tried sending them a message on their Facebook page?    

 

Good luck to all, and stay safe.

 

Hi Judith,

 

Yes, it's unfortunate if they have run into problems.

 

We also had good experiences with both the South Coast and the Golden Circle tours with them in 2018,

 

Bill

[Turtles06]

7 minutes ago, GeorgeCharlie said:

 

Hi Judith,

 

Yes, it's unfortunate if they have run into problems.

 

We also had good experiences with both the South Coast and the Golden Circle tours with them in 2018,

 

Bill

 

Hi Bill, 

 

I do recall that you also had good experiences with them.  

I hope you and your family are safe and well.

[Jangerie]

Thank you for all the replies, my question has been answered, so for the most part this thread is complete. It is sad to see any business go belly up and staff lose their income. In these difficult times we are prepared to share the pain, but it would have been a simple matter to have generated an auto response that explained their situation. We remain grateful every morning we wake up and for the food on our table, so very many are not this fortunate.

[Turtles06]

43 minutes ago, Jangerie said:

but it would have been a simple matter to have generated an auto response that explained their situation.

We can’t know what their situation was, with creditors, landlords, access to their offices and equipment, or anything else, especially in the middle of a pandemic. They were totally great to deal with, and I suspect this is not how they would have preferred for things to go down.